Back in July we announced that we were to be acquired by CityFibre, the UK’s largest alternative provider of wholesale fibre network infrastructure. The deal completed in early August, which means that opportunities for channel businesses to effect change in our industry by driving differentiation and increasing competition are now very real indeed.

From our perspective, we’ve effected more of a merger than a traditional acquisition. Entanet is the same business as it was two months ago. By this we mean that we’re just as ambitious as we’ve always been and we’ll continue to operate as we always did – with our partners at the heart of our business, and with the support mechanisms in place to enable channel businesses to grow. Existing partners will even get to deal with the same people that they always have. The reality of it is that the only operational change that will be felt by our partners is the increased product set available.

The communications industry has seen its fair share of disruption. There are the players who are in a race to the bottom, labelling an increasing number of services provided by ISPs as utilities to be provided at lower cost and lower margin. Then there are those who are disruptive in their own ways by driving their businesses and the channel forward by adopting technologies and digital platforms to improve operational efficiencies, grow revenues and provide a first-class customer-experience. At Entanet, our focus throughout the disruption has been on providing the best possible service and transforming ourselves to firmly place our customers at the heart of our business. While this has meant adopting new and emerging technologies, what we’ve learned throughout our journey is that there’s more to transformation than just the digital element.

Shock, awe, disgust, celebration. Whatever your reaction, nobody ever expected that we’d be left with no leadership and no plan of action. With David Cameron’s resignation, George Osborne and Theresa May keeping a very low profile and Boris Johnson off playing cricket, one may be forgiven for thinking our government has gone AWOL in the wake of last week’s Referendum vote. In any case, there is no firm plan and we’re all left scratching our heads as to what Brexit actually means for our country, our personal lives and the industry that we represent.

Since businesses are keeping the country ticking over while the politicians scrabble around to decide who’s in charge and what needs to be done, we thought we’d seize the opportunity to remind Whitehall what needs to be considered so that the connectivity industry can depart from the EU as painlessly as possible.

The ongoing fight against online infringement has taken a new twist as Cartier International, owners of the luxury Mont Blanc and Cartier brands, has won its case in the High Court to force ISPs to block access to websites allegedly infringing its trade mark. Until now only copyright infringers (such as music and film distributors) have been pursued in this manner. Elizabeth Knight, Open Rights Group’s (ORG) Legal Director, explains her initial concerns about this new development and the safeguards suggested by ORG that have now been accepted by the judge:

The High Court has now decided on this case and instructed the largest UK ISPs to block the reported websites for alleged trade mark infringement. The case was brought by Cartier International and related companies who were seeking an order to force BSkyB, BT, EE, TalkTalk and VirginMedia to block a number of websites that it has claimed have been using the brands’ trade marks for counterfeiting activity.

The European Parliament (EP) recently voted to protect net neutrality with new laws, ensuring that ISPs are unable to prioritise certain types of traffic or charge content providers a premium for delivering their services. The subject of net neutrality has always been controversial but this was particularly surprising as it is the complete opposite of the approach taken by the US. We will be covering this news in more detail in a new article shortly, keep an eye out for that.

This year hasn’t been too shabby for the UK. We witnessed the proud moment when Andy Murray lifted the Wimbledon trophy in July and subsequently winning Sports Personality of the year. We also waited in anticipation as Prince George was presented to the world by William and Kate.

Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing

Meanwhile in the UK comms industry, it seems the year has been full of the Government’s unrealistic plans. Here’s a little reminder of some of the key events.

The Snooper’s Charter

The draft Communications Data Bill, also known as the “snoopers’ charter” was first proposed by the Home Office back in June 2012. It was described as a ‘vital tool’ to help police and snoopers catch paedophiles, terrorists and other serious criminals.

The Bill, which expanded on the existing Internet snooping laws (RIPA), required ISPs to collate information by law on the activities of customers and store the information for up to a year. Authorisation to access this information was self-authorised by senior members of the police, intelligence agencies and the tax agency.

A customer once said to me (in quite colourful terms actually) that he couldn’t care less who owns the network, what technology it uses, where it is or how much it had cost to build-out, as long as it works. To most customers – and thus by default most resellers – that is fundamentally all that matters.

Steve Lalonde, Chief Technical Officer

I’ve heard similar views expressed plenty of times and it’s easy to sympathise with this standpoint. From the end customer’s perspective, all that matters is that the service ‘does what it says on the tin’, as it were; that it delivers what it’s supposed to deliver. But to the partner, the network can make a distinct and vitally important difference.

The first and perhaps the biggest differentiator the network can give resellers is flexibility. Most service providers offer their partners a range of services, but they’re almost always quite tightly defined in terms of the bandwidth, usage allowances, thresholds, SLAs and other features. This is because the actual network belongs to someone else. If you wanted to tailor connectivity to suit a particular set of requirements, it might be possible, but there would almost certainly be limitations and restrictions on what you could do.

Last year in April the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) and CAP (Committee of Advertising Practice) released new guidelines governing the advertising of broadband speeds and ‘unlimited’ broadband packages.

Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing

In a previous article ASA broadband guidelines – What will it mean for resellers? we discussed the details of the guidelines, the likely impact on end users and for the industry and what they would entail for resellers. We came to the conclusion that although we recognised that the ASA and CAP were attempting to protect consumers and prevent them from being misled, the guidelines would cause further confusion and could potentially have a negative impact on the digital divide in the UK. We feared that these guidelines would put a lot of providers off advertising altogether and that this could lead to speed information being withdrawn completely. A year on we review the situation and see what the effect has been.

There’s no denying that cloud computing is a profitable and rapidly growing market and one that is covered on almost a daily basis by the industry press. Entanet recently partnered with Outsourcery, a leading cloud computing provider, to ensure their high quality hosted services are backed up with reliable connectivity that’s fit for purpose, providing their channel of resellers with a complete business solution for customers adopting this popular new approach.

Claire Mitchell, Outsourcery

Yet, while we continue to see growth in this market, there are still many business customers that appear to be holding back from the obvious benefits that cloud computing can provide. In this guest blog from Claire Mitchell, Product Manager for Connectivity at Outsourcery, she describes why she thinks this is the case and how it can be overcome to encourage end user business customers to take the plunge into hosted services.

Is a lack of time a reasonable excuse?
Over the past few years there has been a sharp rise in the number of businesses adopting some aspect of cloud computing. Most businesses have initially adopted one or two cloud solutions and grown from there once they have gained confidence in their decision to adopt a cloud approach to their business. Our experience shows that once businesses learn more about the cloud solutions that are available to them and the benefits they bring, they are eager to adopt more. This brings with it profitable opportunities for our channel partners.

At Outsourcery companies usually approach our partners with one specific service in mind but are not always aware of the additional options open to businesses that have adopted or want to adopt a cloud approach.

It’s no secret that VoIP fraud is a growing problem within the industry. It’s estimated that telecoms fraud can cost operators $40billion a year worldwide and IP based services contribute a significant proportion to that total. But as a VoIP reseller how can you protect yourselves and your customers from VoIP fraud?

In a recent interview with Comms Dealer magazine (August 2012 issue), FCS General Manager, Michael Eagle highlighted this issue and calls for every stage of the supply chain to become more vigilant against fraud. He states “The FCS view is that each member of the supply chain has responsibilities and an important part to play in preventing and dealing with fraud. Accordingly, FCS wants to establish clarity of responsibility and best practice at each level to prevent, restrict or mitigate the losses which would otherwise be suffered by innocent parties.”

Mr Eagle goes onto suggest that wholesalers have an obligation to set up “effective systems in line with agreed industry standards to detect, report and automatically block any unusual call activity as soon as it occurs”. Similarly he argues resellers need to be fully informed and able to react to intelligence as soon as it’s available and end user customers have a responsibility to ensure security and prevent hacking, cooperating with their providers effectively.